Christmas with the Marshalls

Finally, we're getting around to blogging about our Christmas holidays. Yes, it's February already, but we didn't get around to doing it while in Canada, and January (and early February) disappeared in a series of illnesses (first Jer, then Béla, then me), but I'm getting ahead of myself.

First we had to get to Canada. Here we are on the train heading to Frankfurt, which was by far the most pleasant part of our journey. I realize that his hat looks too small, but it's since stretched out a bit, and should fit him for a little while longer. It was a gift from our friend Grit, and I was determined that he should be able to wear a stretchy hat for a one year-old, but his noggin really is huge. The brim is supposed to be folded up, but that's never going to happen with this one.

How was the plane trip, you ask? Good in the sense that the plane arrived close to on schedule without crashing, bad in the sense that his ears caused him such torture that he wasn't able to breastfeed, as the pain of sucking was too much. And so he was hungry and in pain. Oh, and Jeremi and I were seated two rows apart. So yeah, it sucked. (Eventually I realized that he could drink from a bottle, as he didn't have to suck as hard, and I was able to manually express enormous quantities of milk in the airplane bathroom while Jer held the screaming baby, which made the rest of the trip more bearable. But you get the general idea, right?) And yes, I know that you're supposed to nurse the baby on take-off (even when the flight attendant tells you to hold him in the burp position, facing over your shoulder), but the plane left over an hour late, and all my excellent attempts to time his hunger for take-off were for naught. And he just won't eat when he's not hungry...

Anyhow, we made it there, and were met at the airport by not only my parents, but also Nick and Cathy, who were very eager to meet their new nephew, but also wanted to present us with the gift from the Thébeau side of the family, a video camera! They'd wrapped the box, but had the camera out so they could record Béla arriving in Canada, but unfortunately there was a problem with the camera they bought, and it couldn't access the hard drive, so it could only store a few seconds of video. They were able to return it for one that worked properly, but, alas, there is no video of the arrival in Canada.

We arrived early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, went to my parents' place to get settled, and then headed over to Chris and Karen's for Christmas Eve dinner, tourtière. Normally Christmas Eve is spent attending various church services, but I'd already said that we wouldn't go with an infant with jetlag, and Chris and Karen definitely weren't going with a three day-old baby (oh yeah, did I mention that my nephew Gavin was born on the 21st, just in time for us to meet him?), so my mom skipped out on the choir, and we had a relaxing evening catching up. So relaxing, in fact, that we neglected to take any pictures. (This happened often throughout the holidays - it seems I'm making up for it with long-winded prose.)

Then finally, it was Christmas morning!!! We got to dress Béla in his little Christmas sleeper with matching tuque, which magically still fit him. Here he is trying out the exersaucer for the first time. (It was a success, I'd say, though not so much that I ran out and bought one. We're pretty low-tech when it comes to baby toys, but he got to try out all the fancy ones while in Canada.)

Chris, Karen, Owen, and Gavin all came over for breakfast, so we could open our stockings over a big breakfast. Despite our worst fears, Béla adapted to the time different with no trouble at all, sleeping in until 7:30 or so the first day. (I was afraid that Christmas might start at 2:00 am for us...) Here's Owen, having some breakfast.

Little Gavin had a Christmas sleeper on as well, and had his very own stocking. My mom got us all new stockings this year, so that they all matched. And yes, she bought a spare (or two?), in the hopes of future grandchildren.

Hanging out after breakfast with Karen, Owen, and my new nephew. After getting used to Béla, it was as if Gavin weighed nothing. Of course he's not really so light, but Béla was already twice as heavy as he was when he was born.

Béla and his uncle Chris, practicing standing up...

Then we headed over to Chris and Karen's, where we were going to open the presents and have Christmas dinner. Their house has an enormous foyer which is two storeys high, so of course they had to buy an enormous Christmas tree to fill it, which was about four meters tall. Here Jeremi and Béla are standing next to it for scale.

Béla loved opening presents, which mostly involved him grabbing on to a piece of paper, while one of us turned the present around, pulling it away from him, until it was unwrapped.

Getting a very classic baby toy...

...playing with a tambourine that my mom got when the Olympic torch went through Newmarket.

Here he was trying out one of the fancy bells-and-whistles (and-mobile-and-music-and-two-axis-rocking-motion) swings, which failed to lull him to sleep. To be honest, I think he might have been overstimulated. (Speaking of overstimulation, he got to see TV for the first time (that is, TV that's not playing on a laptop), and it was giant flat-screen HDTV at that. He stared, slack-jawed, at the wall of moving light and sound. I also got to see HDTV for the first time, when Karen put on Cars (which I hadn't seen), and I found myself totally overstimulated. Looks like we're sticking to laptop screens for now.

Where the magical swing failed, the cocoon-a-baby saved the day yet again. (He really is asleep with his hands over his eyes like that.)

The big gift that we got for each set of grandparents this year was a photobook of Béla's first 100 days (like how they rate presidents after 100 days, plus it was about when we could get it printed and shipped to us in time before we left). It was a big hit with both sides of the family. Here mom and dad are looking through it, and crying.

The big present for Owen this year was a play kitchen, which was saved for the end. He LOVED it!

After opening the gifts, there was lots of time for sitting around and hanging out. Here's my baba with her new great-grandson. (My mom has now become Baba, and my baba now goes by the questionable title of Baba-baba. She'll always be Baba to not only me, but all of my friends.)

And here are four generations of us, all hanging out on the couch.

And then he was asleep again, with his hands over his eyes. I know that this looks an awful lot like the last picture, but isn't it cute? Besides, it's a good picture of the reindeer-on-skates sleeper.

Here Gavin was having a little sleep on my nap. We brought him his very own Cocoon-a-baby for Christmas, which was very much appreciated.

Nick and Kathy came for Christmas supper as well, as they live nearby, and Kathy's family was all away for the holidays. Here they're checking out the photobook of Béla, while getting some quality baby-holding time in.

And of course big brother Owen (who was almost three) was practicing holding his new baby brother.

Over the next few days we got to see a lot of people, not least my Uncle Bernie, Aunt Joan, cousin Vanessa and her husband Joey, all from Kitchener-Waterloo, who came by to see all the new arrivals. We also went to Melanie and Ruthanne's for brunch, and had a chance to visit with Ezra as well. Also, Gloria, who was supposed to be there for Christmas, but ended up in the hospital on Christmas Day, came up to see us. Alas, we didn't manage to take pictures of any of that. We do have a couple more pictures from our first stint in Ontario though, which are just of Béla being cute while playing with his dad. They don't really add to the holiday narrative, but it's our blog, so we're allowed to post them all the same.

How cute is he?!?